10/13/00 - Friday, The Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA

https://archive.org/details/db2000-10-13.mastered.flac

Image: The exterior of the Great American Music Hall in 1976 (source: Wikipedia)

Review:

Grass is Green is still finding its legs, and interestingly is a little bit slower than the debut from a week ago. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and while this version is more mellow it is also a bit more sonically layered and interesting to me. An outro jam develops out of the ending, and it gets interesting immediately. The band holds to the ending riffs of Grass is Green until about the 14 minute mark when the tempo quickens and Sammy begins shifting toward a dnb theme. It quickly moves from the more tense territory of the preceding jam to a blissful theme that settles into a Svenghali intro. This Svenghali is a definitive version. The jam is monstrous with two fully fleshed out themes. The first theme begins with Magner on the tropical birds synth (one that I associate very strongly with the 10/22/99 Sven). The jam becomes progressively darker, turning absolutely evil. Around 10:45 Magner comes in with an instantly catchy theme on the trance synths, which he uses to deliver the jam to its evil crescendo around the 13-15 minute mark. The theme breaks down around 15:15. A somewhat less sinister dnb theme emerges, though it quickly finds its way back to more tense waters. It’s not quite as energetic or thrilling as the first theme, but it is far more strange and primal. The synth choices that Magner makes beginning around 19:15 help give the jam much of its bizarre character. This jam manages to reach a very organic crescendo just shy of the track change, before the jam breaks down again, this time for the segue into Overture. Spectacular stuff, with both themes yielding more interesting moments than otherwise. The jam out of Overture is another tense dnb theme, though considerably more restrained than the jams into Overture. Just shy of 11:30 Sammy gives some indication of his desire to break out of the dnb confines, and around 11:50-12 he slips out so smoothly it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where. In the final minute leading up to the track change, and for the next few minutes after, he steadily decreases the tempo as the jam moves towards Crickets. Great jam, and even better segue. The first jam in Crickets is considerably more fleshed out than the version from the Galaxy earlier in the week. It has far more variation to it, and Magner has more of a presence, which helps the peak feel more like an actual peak. The jam weaves in and out of the Crickets theme, never venturing too far outside of it, but beginning to push the envelope a bit, until Magner delivers a decisive synth line at 12:30 to signal the move towards the peak. The funk jam is more energetic than in past versions, though shorter, and builds to a pretty solid uncomposed peak.

Lai opens set two. The jam is pretty cool, not must-hear or anything, but I did find it impressive how quickly the band latched on to Barber’s theme and how smoothly and subtly they moved from that theme into Floodlights. The jam out of Floodlights is solid. It’s based around a repetitive droning trance lick from Magner, and it’s pretty ho-hum for most of it, but it does reach a fairly sinister crescendo in the minutes before the track change that segues adroitly into the Lai ending. Fiddler has a short mellow intro jam. The first jam in Fiddler is perhaps a little longer than usual, but still standard, and the second is fleshed way out. The jam steadily breaks down shortly after the composed beginning, and around the 11 minute mark Magner introduces his ambient wave synths into the mix. A very cool spacey jam develops in this section, and by the 15 minute mark Barber begins to work his way back toward Fiddler. A very cool jam in an underutilized section. The closing chords of Fiddler give way to a Basis intro. Magner makes use of a very cool synth that I have not heard much of yet. The jam stagnates at moments but overall it is a very solid Basis intro. The middle section is fleshed out with a solid jam, featuring Magner’s flute synths and thunderous drumming from Sammy. It’s enjoyable but surprisingly short, considering the length of the Basis as a whole. The main jam is nearly twenty minutes long. It starts off based around a simple old-school synth riff from Magner, which carries through most of the jam. Around the 28 minute mark the jam begins to take a turn, and around 30-31 begins to head toward Basis peak territory. The buildup to the Basis peak, like the rest of the jam, is incredibly patient and drawn-out, and I think it works a lot better here than in the rest of the jam. A very solid ending to what was, frankly, not a terribly interesting Basis jam. A pretty standard Home Again closes the set, and is followed by Story of the World in the encore slot. The Story is very good, with a house jam that builds with utmost patience to a thrilling conclusion.

The first set is easily the strongest of tour so far, and one of my favorite sets ever. It is more than strong enough to make up for a somewhat average second set.

Highlights:

Svenghali > The Overture

In an era positively overflowing with excellent dnb jams, this one still manages to stand out as one of the best, and for good reason. There are two distinct themes, the first a more traditional dark dnb build and the second a more experimental vehicle.

The Overture > Crickets

A pretty standard dnb vehicle until Sammy begins to signal the transition into Crickets. A masterfully executed segue into Crickets develops, and is easily the highlight of the jam (and a close contender for highlight of the whole show).

Grass is Green > Svenghali

The rare Grass is Green outro finds a life of its own before Sammy kicks up the tempo and introduces the breakbeats, from which point an excellent Svenghali intro develops.

Crickets

Still a relatively young song, Crickets seems to have matured tremendously in just three days. Hard to believe the band would wait another two weeks to play the song again.

Fiddler

Sorry nearly-forty-minute Basis, the nearly-twenty-minute Fiddler is my pick for highlight of set two (defying just about every expectation from the setlist).

Stray Observations:

This is the first Grass is Green outro.

This is the first inverted Overture, a watershed moment for fall 2000.

There is a Svenghali tease in the Crickets.

This is the first Fiddler with the full band of the year, and the first Basis of the tour.

—Mr. Zan